


alfie wickers and the sexuality crisis (a three part mini-opera)

by Skyuni123



Category: Bad Education (UK TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Author's Favorite, Bisexuality, Everyone's Just a Bit Messed Up, F/F, Gen, M/M, Post-Canon, Sexuality Crisis, post the finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 15:49:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13438086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyuni123/pseuds/Skyuni123
Summary: Discovering you're not quite as straight as you thought you were is a shock, sometimes.(contains mild spoilers for the movie)





	alfie wickers and the sexuality crisis (a three part mini-opera)

_ Part One _

 

Alfie’s in the middle of ‘teaching’ a ‘lesson’ (which actually means he’s in the middle of an anecdote about Atticus Hoy and that one time when they went camping together) when he realises.

He stops suddenly, in the middle of the word ‘frolicking’ and just stands there for a moment, stunned. 

 

“Sir?” Naomi, who is not nearly as precocious as Jing and never will be, but still gives it a damn good try, sticks her hand up. “Are you okay?”

 

“Fine.” Alfie sinks back into his chair and tries not to exist for the next hour and forty-five minutes.

 

The class take that in their stride, but he is a pretty shit teacher anyway so it’s basically class as usual. 

 

* * *

 

_ Part Two _

 

After school finishes he goes to the pub. It’s something he’s been doing a lot lately, after the whole thing with Rosie fell through again, and it’s probably quite embarrassing.

He’s not exactly processed that part yet.

 

Well, he thinks miserably, halfway through his second vodka soda, at least that’s something else for the kids at Abbey Grove to mock him about. Posh twat, finicky teacher, bit of a drunk and possibly in love with a man.

Good.

 

* * *

_ Part Three _

 

He sits in a self-flagellating mess for twenty minutes or so until someone slides onto the chair next to him and knocks him right into his fourth vodka soda.

Wiping the concoction off his nose, he turns to glare at the person, but is stopped in his tracks when he finds out that it’s  _ Stephen _ .

 

Stephen, with Frank, Chantelle and Jing all clustered around behind him.

 

He’s pretty damn happy to see them, but his booze-sozzled brain really isn’t up to actually expressing it.

If this is some kind of booze-fueled fever dream, he’s going to be pretty pissed. “Kids? You shouldn’t be in here. It’s daylight, if the police catch you you’ll be going to juvie and I can’t bail you out…” 

On second thoughts, a lot of that was probably just drunken slurring. 

 

“Sir, we’re eighteen now.” Stephen places a calming hand on his arm. It doesn’t help.

 

“Yeah, means we can drink, innit?” Frank adds, looking less happy to see him, but not distinctly murdery.

 

“Well, that’s weird.” Alfie puts his head down on the bar, and tries very hard to melt into a puddle of sexually-confused goo. “Go away. Leave me to my shame.”

 

“I think he’s having a crisis.” Stephen mutters, in a voice that’s probably meant to be sotto voce but definitely isn’t. “What should we do?”

 

“Get him wasted so he tells us?” Chantelle says. 

Sounds like her, at least. Alfie’s still not completely sure that this isn’t a fever dream yet.

 

“I really don’t think that adding alcohol to the equation’s going to do him much good.” Jing adds. “You could just try talking to him?”

 

“Yeah, but that’s not as much fun though, is it?” Stephen replies, and buys them a round. 

  
  


Ten minutes later, Alfie’s still feeling sorry for himself, but at least now he’s sitting at a table opposite four of his former pupils. It could be worse.

He is  _ very  _ drunk. Blackout drunk. Bad decisions drunk. Make out with Atticus Hoy at a party and not totally regret it drunk.

Yeah, he’s fucked.

 

“...and so we shacked up together!” Chantelle finishes with a flourish. “And we have a cat called Alfie now.  _ And  _ we’re engaged.” She looks at Jing, light gleaming in her eyes, grinning in a way that Alfie’s never seen before. She waves a ring in his face. It's gaudy, but not excessively so, and it suits her.

 

“You figured you were into women in less than a year?” Alfie asks, though a lot of it is just slurring by this point. “Impressive.”

 

“Well, I knew I was into girls at Abbey Grove, yeah? Just not in a lezzo way, just in a ‘wanting to kiss them’ way. Now it’s in a lezzo way too, though, so that’s cool.” Chantelle puts her arm around her girlfriend and kisses her on the cheek.

 

“It’s probably why you kept on throwing yourself at such shit men, actually.” Jing says. It’s a little blunt, but that’s just Jing.

 

Chantelle shrugs. “Prob’ly.”

 

Chantelle and Jing  _ together?  _ In a gay way? He never thought he’d see the day. The whole scenario seems to add points to the ‘fever dream’ thing. Okay. Whatever. He can deal with this. “Wha’ ‘bout you two?” He tries to wave a hand at Stephen and Frank, who are sitting close together, but he can’t seem to hold it steady. It collapses to the table, along with his head.

 

“We’re very happy together.” Stephen chirps.

 

“It alright, yeah.” Frank adds, looking less than comfortable to be admitting such a thing in public. 

 

“Good. Good.” Alfie gives them all a thumbs up. They’re very happy. None of them are dead or in jail. It’s more than he’d expected, if he’s honest. “Good.”

 

“So… tell us…” Stephen prompts, dragging out his words in the silence. “What’s going on with you?”

 

“You really don’t want to know.”

 

“Oh, we really do.” Chantelle says, leaning forward and putting an elbow on the table. “Give us the goss.”

 

“Ughhhhh.” He groans. “Do I have to?”

 

“Yeah.” They all chorus, except for Jing, who just pats him on the hand and says, “Not if you don’t want to, but you really should.”

 

“Okay.” He says, suddenly deciding to man up and just say it. If he’s lucky, he won’t remember it in the morning.

If he’s really lucky,  _ they  _ won’t remember it in the morning.

“I may be having a slight gay,” his voice cracks on the word ‘gay’, “crisis.”

 

Stephen says, very pointedly, “Is this like the ‘gay crisis’ you had when you took us to Cornwall, met Atticus Hoy again, fawned over him, and then realised he was a total knob, or something else entirely?”

 

“That wasn’t a gay crisis!” Alfie yelps, panicking more than a little bit, “It was just… actually yeah, it was a bit of a crisis, wasn’t it?”

 

“What’s your problem now, then?” Chantelle squeezes his hand in her own. It’s probably meant to be comforting, but Alfie has trouble moving away from the whole ‘hitting on him every day for three years thing”.

 

“I think I’m a bit in love with him. Maybe. And with men in general. Yeah.” Alfie puts his head back on the table, miserably. 

Normally, he’d chalk this sort of thing up to standard ‘weird urges’, y’know, like when he’d watched that vampire movie and been really attached to people who looked a lot like Tom Hiddleston for like a week, but this seems permanent. Annoyingly so.

He wonders if being not-straight now means that he can get away with crying during  _ Frozen.  _

 

“Oh.” Chantelle seems disappointed. “I mean, we knew that, y’know.”

 

“Haha, gay.” Frank mutters, but there’s no malice in it.

 

Stephen elbows him. “You are literally in a relationship with a man, babe.”

 

“Still gay.”

 

Jing puts her hand down over Chantelle’s. “Thank you for telling us, Alfie.” It’s one of the kindest things he’s heard from her in years, and he really doesn’t deserve it.

 

“Wait…” Alfie lifts his head up, but he doesn’t pull away. Something’s just occurred to him. “What do you mean, you  _ knew?” _

 

“You literally talked about snogging a man more than once in class, sir.” Stephen says, and raises his eyebrows at him. “Figured it’d come out sooner or later.”

 

“And you spent ages talking about all of the ‘pretty vampires’ after you saw the final  _ Twilight  _ film.” Jing shrugs. “It wasn’t too hard to guess.”   
  


Frank snorts. “You saw  _ Twilight?” _

 

“Don’t you dare mock me for my film choices, Grayson.” Alfie wags a drunken finger at him. “I’m not your teacher anymore, you can’t bully me.”

  
“Pretty sure that’s not how that works.” Frank grunts, but leaves off.

 

“Are you only drinking ‘cause you’ve realised you’re bi?” Chantelle squeezes his hand once and then lets go. “Because I was drunk when I realised I’m bi, but like, I didn’t do it ‘cause of it.”

 

“I don’t know.” Alfie replies, still miserably. “Probably. I don’t know what to do now.”

 

“Keep on being a twat?” 

 

Grayson gets a firm elbow in the ribs for that remark.

 

“It’s just the obligation.” Alfie moans, and downs the rest of his vodka soda in one. “Now that I’m bi, do I have to buy a flag? Go to Pride? I don’t even know what to do.”

 

“You could just go kiss some boys.” Stephen shrugs. “It’s not an occupation. There aren’t really any rules.”

 

“Yeah.” Alfie pouts, and then struggles to his feet. “Guess this conversation’s over, so I’m going to pop home and cry about this a bi-”

He gets three steps before he collapses to the floor in a dead faint. 

 

Chantelle rolls her eyes and rises to her feet gracefully. “Anyone got dosh for an Uber? I’ll take him home.”

 

“Yeah, got a few quid.” Stephen downs his drink and stands as well. “I’ll split you?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Jing, however, leans down and checks Alfie’s pulse. “He’s not dead, by the way. Do you even know where he lives?”

 

To everyone’s surprise, Frank’s the one that answers. “I do.”

 

“...How  _ do  _ you know that?” From Jing’s suspicious look, it’s obvious that she thinks it’s because of bad reasons.

It turns out that she’s right. 

 

“Followed him home and planted a bomb in his letterbox after you lot got back from Cornwall. Freaked ‘em right out.” 

 

“Not a real bomb?!” Stephen gasps, looking at his boyfriend beseechingly, but with a hint of worry as well.

 

“Course not. Glitter bomb. But he though’ it were real till it went off.” Frank stands as well and moves to Alfie, looking over him critically. “Want to get the Uber? I’ll lift ‘em.”

 

“Yeah.” Chantelle calls the Uber and then all four of them help carry Alfie outside.

 

He groans a little as they walk, but is still dead to the world by the time the Uber arrives. They pour him into the Uber and get in as well.

  
  


When Alfie wakes up, he’s on his couch, with a splitting headache and his four ex-pupils lounging on assorted bits of furniture around him. Chantelle’s curled up against Jing, totally asleep. It’s an adorable picture, and one he never thought he’d see. 

“Why am I- how did we get-” Alfie pats his pockets and then growls, “I swear to god, if one of you took my wallet, you’re -”

 

“It’s on the table, idiot.” Jing uncurls one arm from around her girlfriend, and points.

 

His wallet is indeed on the table. He yawns. “How’d you know where I live?”

 

“Glitter bomb.” Stephen sips his tea, which he’s shamelessly stolen out of Alfie’s cupboard.

 

“You?!” Alfie almost feels  _ betrayed  _ at the thought.

 

“Course not, idiot.” Frank growls. “Why would he do that? C’mon.”

 

“Grayson, I am going to kill-” Alfie moves to stand, feels how wobbly his legs are and decides against it. “- actually, maybe another day.”

 

“Sure.” Frank drawls. “I’d like to see you try.” 

 

“Thanks for saving me from a sexuality crisis.” He actually feels a lot better about the whole thing now that he’s had a chance to talk it through with people. He’s not exactly on the level of ‘going out to find a man to sleep with’, but he’s not actively having a panic attack any more, so that’s a good start. “I’m not going to cook you all dinner or anything to thank you, though.”

 

“I’d like to see you try with a pint of rotten milk, some teabags, and three mouldy carrots.” Stephen has another sip of tea. This one’s more delicate, but somehow sassier.

 

“Shit, is that all I’ve got in?”

 

“Yes.” Jing looks at him disapprovingly. She used to do that a lot, and he hadn’t realised how much he’s missed it until now. “How are you still alive?”   
  


“That’s a question for the ages, Jing.” Alfie squints in his wallet. His brain’s telling him, very violently, to just go to bed (even though it’s only about 5.30 in the evening), but his stomach… 

Yeah, there’s definitely enough cash in. He’s starving. “Anyone want Nandos? I’ll order in.”

 

The resulting cheer is loud enough to wake Chantelle and to prompt his elderly neighbours next door to bang on the wall and shout, “shut up, you bleeding poof!”

That  _ warm  _ greeting isn’t enough to kill his mood.

Even though life generally sucks (a lot), this doesn’t feel so bad. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> alfie's bi though, right? come on. 
> 
> hit me up on [ tumblr ](http://villainousfilmmaker.tumblr.com)


End file.
